Prickly little bundles of personality

Some pet owners have dogs or cats, while others have ferrets they lead around on a leash as if they were a dog or cat. Then there’s Groton resident Matthew Lickteig, 19. He owns a hedgehog.

Lickteig has owned “Hedgie” for two years. He sleeps approximately 10 feet away from him in a big guinea pig cage. Since hedgehogs are nocturnal, that was initially a problem. “He doesn’t sleep at night,” he said. “He has a wheel that he runs on all night.” Like living near a subway line, you become accustomed to it.

Brian Goslow/Correspondent

Some pet owners have dogs or cats, while others have ferrets they lead around on a leash as if they were a dog or cat. Then there’s Groton resident Matthew Lickteig, 19. He owns a hedgehog.

“I wanted a pet that was friendly that I could let roam around without my cats attacking him,” he said. For the most part, cats Samba, 13, and Chenga, 7, have shared their home with few problems. “Chenga is the younger one,” Lickteig said. “When I brought Hedgie home, he smelled him and got pricked really fast. Now he keeps away from him.”

Lickteig has owned “Hedgie” for two years. He sleeps approximately 10 feet away from him in a big guinea pig cage. Since hedgehogs are nocturnal, that was initially a problem. “He doesn’t sleep at night,” he said. “He has a wheel that he runs on all night.” Like living near a subway line, you become accustomed to it.

And what do they eat? “Hedgehog food,” Lickteig said. “You can get it at any pet store, surprisingly. It’s not that expensive. I get a bag every two weeks for five or six bucks.

“At first, my dad wasn’t too happy,” said Lickteig, about his choice of pet. “He said, ‘You’re going to school in a year. You’ll have to find someone to take him when you go.’” Lickteig is now at UMass Lowell and guess who has part-time hedgehog responsibilities: “My dad loves him, so he takes care of him.”

Many of Lickteig’s friends ask to hold Hedgie when they visit him at home. He may look like an adorable little bundle, but it’s asking for big trouble to cuddle a sleepy hedgehog. “When you wake him up, you’ve got to give him 15 minutes,” he said. “Then you can hold him. He’s a real personable pet. He has a real personality you don’t see in other pets.”

Hedgie recently developed an eye infection and was taken to Dr. Tara Rittle of the Littleton Animal Hospital. “She said for pets she’s had, they [hedgehogs] are incredibly tolerant to being examined,” Lickteig said. “But mine wasn’t. She had to put him under anesthesia to give him a checkup.” Hedgie’s got one thing in common with humans. “We have to give him eye drops, but they’re impossible to get in.”

Most hedgehogs don’t like to be handled. “Hedgie rolled up into a ball and hissed at me,” Rittle said. “Their defense mechanism is to move into a ball so they react to me like I’m a predator.” She has three or four hedgehogs on her patient list. “If you don’t know what you’re doing, you can get pricked by their spikes. On the other hand, an angry cat can do more damage with their claws.”

Hedgehogs are very individual in character. “It depends how much their owners hold them,” said Rittle, who said they wouldn’t be the first pet she’d recommend to someone looking to own an exotic pet. “They can be difficult to manage,” she said. “I wouldn’t recommend them to a house with small children. They tend to get overweight because their owners feed them things they can’t be fed. Then there’s tartar on teeth problems but there’s a pet formula toothpaste you can get.”

Rittle said a hedgehog normally has a three-to-five year life expectancy; some that have grown in captivity have lived as long as 10 years. “They’re one of the more unique pets that we see,” she said. “They’re the only insectivores – they only eat bugs - that we see outside of birds.”